Gallowglacht wrote:Are helmets included for me to house-rule or adjudicate on the fly?Would it be a better idea to steal the +/- 1 damage for large small weapons from Swords and Wizardry, differentiate weapons on the fly (eg, weapons with reach hit first first round, maces get a bonus to hit vs skeletons, daggers get a minus versus guys with sword and shield) or leave at flat d6?What published TSR or OSR adventures make a good basis for a first adventure?

I haven't actually played OD&D, all my experience is BECMI and 1e/2e onwards...

Regarding helmets: Helmets are feature in the DD rules because they feature in the original rules. You should house rule them if that pleases you! But be sure to notice the helmet rules given under magical helms. One of my own house rules is to extend the rule given explicitly for magical helms to all helms. A damage die of 6 would then indicate a head hit for 6 hit points of damage. With no helmet, that is gonna hurt. With a helmet, the helmet is struck off instead causing no damage, but possibly destroying the helm.

Regarding small/large weapons:It's really up to you. As you're deciding what to do remember that a combat turn is one minute long and subsumes multiple blows into a single attack roll. So while larger weapons might "hit harder", smaller weapons might hit more frequently, so the net effect might be about the same. Remember also that weapons are already differentiated by the order of attacks and parrying rules, and (most significantly) by their frequencies on the treasure tables.

Regarding first adventures:There are so many good ones to choose from, but possibly one of the greatest introductory adventures from TSR is The Keep on the Borderlands by EGG. It's written for Basic D&D, but it works perfectly fine with OD&D/DD too.

As for OSR dungeons, there's a lot of great and varied material in the original One Page Dungeon Codex which is in fact system neutral, but again works perfectly fine with OD&D/DD too. As it happens I'm in the process of rewriting my own entry in that Codex (the winning entry for that contest in fact!) expressly for DD. Coming soon...